And Steven is out!
Walt: So what do you do — where are you? Steven: Windows and Windows Live...
Walt: How many people work under you? Steven: About 6000.
Walt: How do you feel about not being in the gang of four? Steven: I feel like we're on The Voice... we just want to get picked.
Ha, laughs for that
Walt: Now years ago, there would have been a gang of one... Microsoft. How do you feel about a peer not including you? Steven: Well, nothing called gang of four ends well. It's an interesting group of companies, and a lot of great work. But 95% of users are getting on the internet with Windows.
Walt: I know it's unfair, you're not the CEO of Microsoft, so I'll ask you. You've missed a couple of things. iPhone... stuff that started with the iPhone. Steven: Well we have an entry, we're trying hard.
Walt: But you're years late. We're not seeing a tablet with gestures and multitouch... when did the iPad come out? 18 months ago? Why? I know you have smart people.
Steven: Look, there are always things we're doing well, and things we're not doing well. It doesn't mean we're out of the game, it's a long game.
Steven: There's an opportunity for us to do a better job. Walt: You don't think there's a systemic issue of being nimble at Microsoft? Steven: People always want when something big comes out, they want to see it from another company. But there are parallel processes going on.
Steven: There are different rhythms and timescales — the world of browsers looks like that. It's only been 16 months on the iPad, and little longer on the iPhone. I think today we'll see what we're doing in touch interfaces and the touch world.
Looks like it's nearly demo time... for Windows 8.
Walt and Steven are talking about how the places Windows would appear and the kinds of systems it's on now versus older desktop and laptop iterations. Clearly leading towards an ARM conversation here.
Whoa, lost internet there for a moment.
Here's Windows 8:
thisismynext.comWalt: I'm not a coder, but I understand there is a lot of legacy stuff in Windows. Lots of customers you have to support. It's this big bulky thing. You have this sense on your own computer, that the longer you use it, the more sluggish it gets. When you put on an iPad, it feels light and new and responsive. I don't want to sound like a straight man — you have this problem, you were doing tablets and they didn't catch on, the guys in Cupertino are rocking — why would you turn to this heavy OS?
Steven: Well everyone said the same thing about servers... Walt: Well not everyone. Steven: Obviously, it's a fair question, but it's unfair, and I signed up for either. The thing that's most fascinating about the evolution of Windows is yeah, it grew up with hardware, and at some point, we reached a plateau and we said we don't need some of these requirements.
Walt: Like Vista, that was a great example. Steven: Well... Walt: In my experience, you needed a new computer to run Vista...
Steven: Well at any rate, with 7, we went down on system requirements. But something interesting happened along the way — what were the requirements for a phone, or a smartphone? Their requirements have been doubling every six months, and now they have the requirements to run Windows.
Walt: But not the room. Steven: No, actually they do.
Now Steven is talking about the decision to switch to ARM — "We looked at this and said we can do that."
Walt: So you have this new Windows... what are you calling it? Steven: We have this code name... Windows 8.
Walt: Apple took a computer OS and stripped it down, you're taking a different approach. Why is it better for consumers? Steven: It's better because of all the things Windows brings with it... Walt: You mean viruses and craplets?
Steven: Or printing, or using SSDs... Walt: The other guys do that.
Steven: All of the work we do will go across all these platforms. We've looked from the ground up about how you interact with Windows, the kinds of programs you can run... a word we used a lot was 'modern'
Walt: And every desktop program will run on this? Steven: Yeah, everything runs.
Demo time!
Walt: What is this? Julie: This is a dev rig.
Julie: This could be any kind of device. This is a desktop computer under here.
Looks and acts just like Windows Phone, but this is the new Start screen! Wild!
